Chapter Sixteen: A Pair of Tickets--> Jing-mei Woo Term--> Theme

Queen Mother of the Western Skies

In the final chapter of the story, Jing-mei and her father are set to fly to China. She thinks about the events that led to their journey. She did not wish to deceive her stepsisters and was trying to think how their first meeting would go. Canning and Jing-mei first land to greet Canning's aunt and some other family members. They all stayed in a hotel in communist China. Her father told his aunt of his wife's story, and Jing-mei awoke to here it. She learned her mother wrote for years to her friends in China to look for her babies, but no one had found them til now. After Canning and Jing-mei said goodbye to their family. They went to the airport and flew to Shanghai. When she got off the plane, her sisters recognized her instantly. They embraced each other in a hug, and Canning took a photo of the three of them. In the picture they could see the reflection of their mother.
"If only, I think, if only my mother had lived long enough to be the one walking toward them. I am so nervous I cannot even feel my feet" (287). The emotion of seeing her long lost family members was getting to her before she met them. It was great hope that they would love her and that they would get along. Its hard to know what to expect and in that situation I think anyone would be nervous.
"And although we don't speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish" (288). The last sentence in the book provides the theme of the story. In the end, one can make there wishes come true.